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APR 2013?


TruthWalleyes

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First Evening In Stand. Past Up Shots On 5 Legal Deer. 1 Doe And 4 Bucks. Saw 7 Does And 6 Bucks Total. Very Fun Evening! Just Further Proof.....Aprs Or No Aprs.....You Put A Reasonable Amount Of Time In A Deer Stand In Zone 3.....You Are Not Going To Have A Problem Putting Meat In The Freezer. If You Make The Choice To Only Spend One WeekendIn The Woods With A Gun In Zone 3 And You Come Home Empty Handed.....YouDid Much More To Keep Your Freezer Empty Than Any Regulation Ever Could.

#1

You've got to update your keyboard on your phone.

#2

I've never had a hard time shooting a "Legal" buck in Z3. I hold out for a big rack and fill doe tags in the mean time. What APR considers legal is generally small in my eyes, but i'm completely OK with neighbors and others shooting smaller deer as i realize my goals are set fairly high.

#3

Darn Farmers. smile

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Crazy, now that people have to be more selective about what deer they shoot, less deer are being shot. Who would of thought that? Wonder if that has happened anywhere before with APR?

Anyone from the pro-APR side have the data that shows that APR's aren't hurting the controlling of the deer population (from the general hunters, not sharp shooters or crop depredation permits.) Or, to keep it positive, data showing that the APR hunters are doing better then the non-APR hunters in controlling the deer herd. Shouldn't be too hard to show at least an example of the data from harvest of Intensive areas in and out of zone 3.

Funny, the only place we have Early-antlerless this season is zone 3. I hunted every Early-antlerless season prior to this one, in zone 2. Funny how that worked out.

APR's are for Lottery/HC areas, areas where we do need to restrict deer harvest. Where more does need to be harvested you might need to force the hunters to do it, Earn-a-buck. Hopefully the EA season is successful so EAB won't be needed. Imagine....EAB and APR in zone 3!!!

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99% of the land down there is private and 99% of the farmers will not allow outsiders to hunt their property. When you have 500 acres with 100 being woods and only let a few family members hunt it, well they are not taking enough. So was there no crop damage prior to APR? Has the amount of damage when up a lot since APR? Cry me a river, open up your land to a few people and have them take a deer or two.

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Should read a farmer is mad. Lets analyze that story he has 40 acres of corn and the outside rows often stink anyway in non-irrigated stuff. I didn't see him mention he had a group of bowhunters in there for the opening weekend to help out. I'd bet raccoons are also a part of that 1,500 dollar loss. So prior to APR there was hardly any crop depredation going on ? I'm sure it's all those darn yearling bucks, 40 acres of corn so all the farmers are upset, that is if you chose to only put 40 acres in the ground.

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It's a television news story, they aren't going to shoot and edit interviews with 20 different farmers.

The fact that the DNR says "they understand the concerns of farmers" and have established a program especially for them in the SE leads me to believe the DNR has heard from more than 1 guy with 40 acres.

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A high deer population for areas in the southeast has always been an issue. It appears to be a specific problem in 2 small areas. One of those area is just north of Winona, where this farmer is said to be located. It looks like the DNR knows this high density pocket exists and is having an early antler less season. I won't make assumptions about this farmers hunting practices, but I don't think APR is the sole reason the deer population on that area is out of control.

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I think the number of farmer complaints is more associated with the price of corn than the number of deer. I remember around here in central MN, more complaints came in during the winters of 96-97 than any other year. Deer numbers were low then and the winters were tough. The deer that were left were bunched up and hitting standing ag fields hard. Had nothing to do with high deer density.

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Taking the word of one farmer with only 40 acres of corn doesn't seem to be a good sample size to me.

How about a couple farmers with 40 acres each who have lost half their corn? We hunt the heck out of the farms and shoot a lot of deer every year, but it doesn't help when you've got an elitist hunter next door that locks up 600 acres and only shoots one deer on a good year, or an animal rights person on the other side that locks up 800 acres and doesn't shoot any deer.

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Wow mntatonka that sounds like the best 40 in the world!

235 actually, just 40 of corn. If you're looking for big bucks, it can be a heck of a spot. We've had people from Chicago call to lease the land for hunting many times, offering tens of thousands of dollars per year, cash.

Now if you're trying to grow corn to raise beef to make a living, it's not so great when you can't even control the deer population.

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what the farmers have to do is let people come in and thin the population.

My wife's uncle in ND complains every year that the waterfowl eat $12,000 to $18,000 dollars worth of crops from him....yet he won't let anyone hunt his property. We hunt it and thats about it. Sad deal. He recoupes his losses via crop insurance and $$ from the government.

As far as I'm concerned, the farmers really shouldnt complain. There are metrics and actions they can take to lessen the damage. Just my 2 cents.

Dont blame APR on too many deer and crop damage.

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Dear farmers:

Respectful bowhunter with years of experience, bowhunter's education, firearms hunter's education, and long standing track record of no outdoors related violations is looking to help thin your deer herd.

Can and will shoot only does at your request.

Also handy in other ways. Can help with property maintenance, computer issues (IT/computer tech), research, etc. Please reply if we can help eachother....

Wait this is not C R A I G S L I S T

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That channel 5 story was nothing more than a hit on hunters and I think/hope everyone realizes that.

Basically it was a non-story that needed a spin to make it airable. Lame.

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OK, that article did it...It changed my mind forever...

I'm a MANDATED APR supporter. More horns for me please.

It's all aboot the horns man. Can't wait to get them horns on my wall this year.

Quit shooting the yearlings. I want bigger horns.

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You'd think the brown down crew would appreciate us mature buck hunters a little more, we do pass up a pile of targets for you guys each fall. Has to make filling the freezer that much easier for you.

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Kinda goes both ways to doesnt it? Just imagine how hard it would be to find a big buck, if 500,000 hunters in the woods are all looking for trophy bucks. Not only that, but how hard it owuld be to get land to hunt the prime big buck areas.

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You'd think the brown down crew would appreciate us mature buck hunters a little more, we do pass up a pile of targets for you guys each fall. Has to make filling the freezer that much easier for you.

Is that me you are talking to? I haven't shot a buck mature or imature for over ten years and have been passing on a lot of does too so I guess I'm not in the brown its down camp! You guys might want to realize that just because someone understands what a pile of carp APR is that doesn't mean they are meat hogs.

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Kinda goes both ways to doesnt it? Just imagine how hard it would be to find a big buck, if 500,000 hunters in the woods are all looking for trophy bucks. Not only that, but how hard it owuld be to get land to hunt the prime big buck areas.

Silly.

Right now we have very few prime big buck areas and you think creating more of them will make it harder to find one to hunt. Right now we have 500,000 hunters and 499,000 of them won't pass up a good shot on a trophy buck now, and you think putting more trophy bucks in the woods will make it harder to find one.

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one of the weakest reports on local t.v in years, on any subject. Lets hear the weak arguments on this one.

http://www.qdma.com/articles/aprs-why-do-so-many-michigan-hunters-like-them

Not a terrible article. A bit biased if you know the Doctor's business who wrote this, but I do respect the guy from reading a bunch of what he has written.

Every time I read "then hunters were surveyed five years later and the support for the reg was higher then ever" I cringe. Ya think maybe the hunters that didn't like the new reg either quit hunting or found someplace else to hunt? Just maybe. I would really like to see one of the later surveys done to the same individual hunters as the first survey.

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Kinda goes both ways to doesnt it? Just imagine how hard it would be to find a big buck, if 500,000 hunters in the woods are all looking for trophy bucks. Not only that, but how hard it owuld be to get land to hunt the prime big buck areas.

Sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense at all.

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"then hunters were surveyed five years later and the support for the reg was higher then ever"

They probably asked questions like "Do you like big deer?"

If you say "Yes" you fall into the APR trap.

Hmmm, kind of like the MN DNR survey. smirk

Man that centerfold looks nice on my wall. Now, i need a big deer head next to it.

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Silly.

Right now we have very few prime big buck areas and you think creating more of them will make it harder to find one to hunt. Right now we have 500,000 hunters and 499,000 of them won't pass up a good shot on a trophy buck now, and you think putting more trophy bucks in the woods will make it harder to find one.

Well if you have 500,000+ hunters in the woods, and the majority of them are willing to shoot a doe, or a spike buck, then you convert them over to 500,000+ head hunters that will only shoot large rack bucks, now the competition for large racks starts tenfold from what it is now. Then you will have trophy hunters from thoughout the country coming here, then you will have pretty much all land leased to the highest bidder. No more cheap deer hunting. Poaching will increase as well. Supply and demand. Right now we have a majority happy to shoot a doe, a forkhorn, or small basket racks, and you want to make it mandatory to shoot large racked deer.

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